1. Industrial Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pleated skirt commonly used for a uniform wear.
2. Prior Art
Conventionally, in standard-type pleated skirts except hand-sewn high-quality products, pleats formed in fabric material are set linearly extending in parallel or have a width gradually increasing toward the hem. This is because of mass production in which fabric material for each of front and back bodies of a skirt is held between pleat pattern molding boards, folded into outer pleat parts and inner pleat parts alternately, and subjected to the permanent pleating process, thereby forming pleats. Therefore, the pattern boards are also arranged for forming pleats which linearly extend in parallel or have a width gradually increasing toward the hem whether the pleats are located in a central portion or in side portions of the skirt.
The above-described pleated skirt is designed considering the productivity in the first place. However, when a person wears the skirt, pleats in portions of the skirt on the hipbones and in the vicinity of the hipbones between the waist and the hips are not curved along the waist nor the hips but are opened outwardly, thus deteriorating an appearance of the skirt. When pleats are in this condition, they are expressed as "rising". Pleats rise because all the pleats of the conventional pleated skirt have a uniform width, the hip size is simply derived from the number of outer pleat parts of the pleats, and the waist is supposed to have an almost circular shape.
Actually, the waist includes side portions projected forwardly by the hipbones and has a depressed elliptic cross section.. The hips are larger than the waist and somewhat bulges backwardly. There arises no problem if a skirt has many pleats. However, for example, in a pleated skirt including 16 pleats which is now popularly in the market, a plurality of pleats rise in side portions of the waist which have a small curvature radius and contact with the hipbones and in bulging portions of the hips.